This morning the boat
was surrounded by hundreds of dolphins. They were swimming all around,
especially up at the bow. Some were jumping way out of the water. Finally
we couldn’t resist, and we donned our snorkeling gear and jumped
in with them. I thought they would swim away as soon as we got near,
but they stayed around. They seemed to be as curious about us as we
were about them. We were in the water for about an hour and had as many
as 20 around us at a time. Some were as close as two to three feet away.

Just when we thought
things couldn’t get any better, we did a dive and saw about six
to eight big turtles. Kate got close enough to touch one. The largest
was about five feet long. Way, way cool!

EQUATOR, OCTOBER
2002Wow! At 6:20
a.m. on October 9, we crossed the equator!

And yes, we were all
up to see it. Scott wanted to go flush a toilet to see if it really
does run backwards. Kate wanted to know why it was so cold, since “It’s
supposed to be hot at the equator.” Michelle was busy with her
camera. And I ran for the bottle of good champagne.

So there we stood,
at 6:20 a.m., glasses raised in a toast, camera poised to capture the
moment, as we crossed from the Northern Hemisphere into the Southern
Hemisphere.

Welcome to the [region
of the] land Down Under!

Isn’t this a
kick!

EASTER ISLAND,
NOVEMBER 2002We celebrated
Halloween Askari style last night. Everyone had to come in costume.
This was a little challenging since we are on a sparsely populated island
in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! But we gave it our best.

Scott came as a member
of the Blue Man Group. He painted his face, head, and hands bright blue
and wore all-black clothes. I came as a pirate, complete with an eye
patch, sword, and ship’s flag. Mark, our chef, came as a “mola”
monster. He wore a mola mask he bought in the San Blas Islands. Our
captain Lon came as a Rasta man, complete with dreadlocks and all! Claud,
our engineer, came as “Claud recycled.” He wore his tie-dye
pants from Hippie Night, his mola vest from Murder Mystery Night, and
his hat from Peru Night. (Editor’s note: The family and crew often
threw Theme Nights for fun and to pass time on long crossings.) Altogether,
it was typical Claud! Tess (one of the stewardesses and our nurse) came
as a witch with a black trash bag as her dress. She had a huge, pointed
black hat and a long, gray wig. She blacked out a few of her teeth and
drew several large moles on her face. Heidi, the other stewardess, came
as “Oceania,” Goddess of the Sea (from South African folklore).
She had a long flowing blue dress and lots of sparkles all over her
face and carried a big, blue wand (made from a kitchen spoon). Michelle
came as a “blue-footed booby baby.” There’s a bird called
the blue-footed booby that really has blue feet. So Michelle had blue,
webbed feet (made from craft foam) and a baby bonnet, a diaper, a rattle,
and a pacifier!

The second-best costume
was Kate and Geri (stewardess). They came as Siamese twins! They made
a pair of pants that had three legs; they also had matching pigtails,
matching black shirts with sequins, and, of course, matching attitudes!

The most creative
was Don, our second mate. He came as “bird-dropping man.”
He was apparently cleaning bird poop off the deck when this idea came
to him. He wore a T-shirt with a stuffed bird on the shoulder and used
white icing to make bird droppings all over the shirt. But the best
part: He shaved his head and painted a target on the top! That boy goes
all-out for Halloween!